The Best Voice Assistants to Integrate With Google Calendar

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Like many people, you probably rigidly plan your weeks with Google Calendar. Indeed, this free tool is an incredibly robust time management helper, and it’s very easy to use. In an effort to use this tech to simplify life even more, you might be researching about voice assistants.

Voice search is handy for enabling you to book a taxi, do an Internet search and launch apps, just by speaking. But, if you’re serious about investing in voice assistants, it should be compatible with Google Calendar. After all, there’s no reason to trade one tool for another. Keep reading to learn about some of the best voice assistants to smoothly pair with Google Calendar, in no particular order.

1. Alexa

Alexa is the voice and technology behind Amazon’s Echo and Dot gadgets. Alexa can give news and weather updates after waking you up in the morning, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it can also sync with your Google Calendar and read events from it.

Connecting Alexa to a Google Calendar is simple, and you can do it in a few minutes. After getting to the proper settings, there is even a prompt to select for adding the calendar. If you also use Microsoft’s Outlook or Office 365 to stay on top of your days, Alexa works with those services, too.

Alexa is a particularly good choice if you prefer audio feedback to help with information recall. For example, hearing Alexa tell you about upcoming events will decrease the chances you’ll forget about obligations.

2. Google Voice Search

If you’ve looked at a Gmail message lately and noticed it contained an underlined time and date, that’s an example of how many Google technologies work together. In that example, the date and time are links, and clicking on them allows you to verify if there are other events on your Google Calendar that conflict with the time-sensitive things in the message.

In the same way, a phone that includes Google Voice Search can also link with your Google Calendar and allow you to carry out various tasks by speaking. Some of them are extremely specific.

For example, after setting up the capability on your device, you can get reminders about upcoming bills to pay. Google Voice Search also responds to various prompts given in natural language. You can get a rundown of an upcoming day by saying “What does my day look like tomorrow?” or be more specific and say, “When’s my next doctor’s appointment?”

Adding events is also a voice-powered option. That’s good news if you’re often a little scatterbrained and want to update your calendar as soon as new responsibilities crop up.

Consider Google Voice Search as an excellent option, particularly if you don’t want to invest in something brand-new or are a big fan of other Google products. The feature comes pre-installed on many Android smartphones, so you may already have access and not realize it.

Once the two are linked, just say, “Create appointment,” and follow the on-screen prompts. Asking “Cortana, what’s on my schedule today?” also brings up all synced calendars, which is helpful if you’re a Google Calendar power user. Cortana is also an advantage offered on many Windows phones.

It should be clear from this list that you have plenty of easily accessible options for making Google Calendar and a voice assistant work together. To choose wisely, look at the other things a particular voice tool can do and see if they match your most common uses.

This is a Guest Post by Kayla Matthews. Kayla is a researcher, writer and blogger covering topics related to technology and productivity. She is the owner of ProductivityTheory.com and ProductivityBytes.com, as well as a regular contributor to MakeUseOf, VentureBeat, VICE’s Motherboard, The Huffington Post and The Daily Muse.